Parrikar to decide if defence chiefs’ wives can go abroad at govt expense

The headquarters have underscored past convention to pitch for spouse travel, saying wives accompanied the chiefs since they pick up welfare measures for the military wings their husbands were in.

Updated on: Feb 20, 2017, 08:24:54 IST

New Delhi, Hindustan Times | By Shishir Gupta

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A debate is raging between the defence ministry and military headquarters over whether spouses of the army, navy or air force chiefs should be allowed to travel with them on an official visit abroad.

Defence minister Manohar Parrikar. (Reuters Photo)

The sensitive issue has reached defence minister Manohar Parrikar, who is expected to give his opinion this month as his ministry and the military administration hold opposite views on conventions and travel rules.

The headquarters have underscored past convention to pitch for spouse travel, saying wives accompanied the chiefs since they pick up welfare measures for the military wings their husbands were in.

It is standard practice for these first ladies to head welfare associations of fellow military wives and play a key role in rehabilitation of families whose kin have laid down their lives for the country.

“This is a military convention and many countries such as France, Germany, Vietnam, Thailand, and the UK follow, allowing the spouses to accompany their husbands,” a former army chief told Hindustan Times.

But the defence ministry’s finance wing has pointed out that only the President, Vice President and Prime Minister are allowed to take along their better halves at government expense during an official visit outside the country.

Further, according to government rules, not even a Union cabinet minister can take his or her spouse on foreign trips. That includes the defence minister.

At present, only vice-president Hamid Ansari travels with his wife, Salma Ansari.

In terms of protocol, the services chiefs are ex officio officers of cabinet secretary rank and report to the defence minister.

Parrikar is likely to speak to the three service chiefs and the defence secretary before he decides on the spouse travel rule.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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